Come Visit Metropolitan Dallas...Before It's Gone

17 April 2015

Is this the future of Dallas? This fictitious advertisement forecasts an impending narrative of Dallas, continually bound between a wrecking ball and new construction. No building (or architect) is safe from the torment of the detonator and the hashtagged viral videos proclaiming the implosion. By prearranged schedule, each of the cities’ districts will be entirely torn down and rebuilt to satisfy our immediate impulse. One district after another will follow suit on a rolling clock with no time to look back.

For one day only, prior to demolition, visitors are invited to tour the outdated districts a final time. The 90-minute Segway® tour includes the history of notable sites within the district as well as firsthand accounts from those who visited there. Help capture the memories before they’re gone! Submit your photographs to preserve our history in Dallas’ new history museum, that is until the subsequent demolition. Entire districts wiped out solely to be rebuilt again, this time much more in tune with our liking. Why preserve when we can build new and serve our fleeting immediate needs?

On each demolition day, citizens can bid farewell to outdated architecture as it is reduced to nothing more than rubble. This is prescribed burning on an urban scale. Following precedent, we reduce the old growth in order to promote new development without the side effect of germination. The city will push forward, thus transplanting the natural model to fit with our manufactured constructs in hopes of an equivalent outcome. We are making way for new growth without the distraction of matured cultural identity, historic preservation, or adaptive re-reuse, as we move to satisfy the consumer demands with the latest trends. The cheers of the crowd will only strengthen our no longer wavering confidence that the new is superior to the old.

Will we ever pause to wonder why some species vanish with minor impact, some adapt to new circumstances, and why the absence of some leave an ecosystem devastated? Is this the future of Dallas?